On June 25, 2020, the five commissioners of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), by a vote of three-to-two, withdrew proposed Regulation Automated Trading (Reg. AT), and by a vote of four-to-one, proposed a set of three new rules (Risk Principles) addressing electronic trading. In this process, CFTC moved substantially away from the earlier proposal,
The CFTC has asserted that Bitcoin is, and other virtual currencies may be, commodities under the Commodity Exchange Act. As such, pursuant to Section 2(c)(2)(D) of such Act, “off exchange” financed retail transactions in virtual currency are prohibited unless an exception applies. One exception found in Section 2(c)(2)(D)(ii)(III)(aa) provides, in relevant part, that such a
On Sept. 25, 2017, the Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement and the Institute for Corporate Governance and Finance at New York University School of Law hosted a policy speech by James McDonald, Director of the Division of Enforcement, United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Mr. McDonald presented the CFTC’s new self-reporting and cooperation
President Trump has announced his intention to nominate Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) acting head J. Christopher Giancarlo as permanent chairman. This news is of high importance for the alternative investment community, which will be impacted by Giancarlo’s regulatory vision for the agency and Dodd-Frank reform. As a Republican commissioner at the agency since 2014,
We have previously provided updates1 on the Navinder Singh Sarao case, pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. After being charged in February 2015 with fraud and spoofing related to the 2010 Flash Crash, Sarao, then resident in the United Kingdom, fought a yearlong, multiple-appeal battle against extradition, before
Sarao, Coscia, and now the Berkshire Power Company, each charged with crimes – spoofing, fraud, false information – relating to commodity trading. Commodity traders likely have incorporated into their compliance regimes the general risk that allegations of criminal fraud could arise. These criminal matters no longer appear to be isolated instances and, instead, counsel for